Lasts, History and use in Medieval Shoes

(before 1100)Lást Old English Masculine: footstep. Læst Old English Feminine: boot. Læste Old English Feminine: Shoemaker's last, cognate with:

Dutch leest masculine

Old High German leist (Middle High German leist, modern German leiste(n
masculine), last)

Old Norse Leist-r foot, sock (south-western Danish läst last)

Gothic laist-s footstep, track (????), cognate with:

Old High German (wagan) -leisa track, rut (Middle High German, leis(e
feminine), geleis truckway, modern German geleise, gleise rut); by
most recent scholars referred to a Teutonic root *lais- (:lïs-) to follow a
track ...

(14th - 18th centuries)laste

(14th - 15th centurieslest(e)

(14th century on)last

(Obsolete) A footstep, track, trace. After Old English this only appears in the Scottish
phrase not a last: nothing, not at all.

First documented appearance of the term is in Beowulf...

A wooden model of the foot, on which shoemakers shape boots and shoes.

The origins of shoes are obscured by the distance of history, and like
them, the origin of the last is equally hidden in that same distance. Tradition
among shoemakers would imply that lasts have always been used, alongside other ancient
tools like the boar's bristle, flax thread and the curved awl, if not since Adam was
handed his first lasts after being tossed from the Garden, at least since the day that
some nameless caveman got tired of wearing leather bags on his feet and so invented
shoemaking. However, while tradition can tell us a great deal about the people who
maintain those traditions, tradition is not history. Ideally, history is determined
by facts that can be documented and studied objectively (I should note that this view of
history is at variance with some of the schools of thought in historicial studies in the
past decades. While I accept the reality of relativism in history, I'm not sure that we
should use that as an excuse to stop searching for an objective truth).

This particular question came about when I was told that it was impossible
to make a turnshoe without a last. This isn't true, and I know it since I've done it
many times. So I developed a hypothesis that said that since it wasn't necessary to
use a last to do turned work, they didn't. I assumed that to support this hypothesis
that the evidence would show a paucity of lasts in historical contexts, and those that did
exist would not show signs of shoemaking (distinctive tack holes, distinctive sole shapes,
etc). So then I gathered the evidence I could, and attempted to disprove my
hypothesis.

The evidence as it exists consists of a large number of shoe soles and:

The lasts used by the Romans are generally described as being
"iron feet", although they more closely resemble what we woud thing of today as
cobbler's lasts. They were use flatten the hobnails used on the sole. This is a different
style of shoemaking than we are otherwise describing10

1-6th C

Coptic

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Now found at the Bally Shoe Museum -- these purportedly
reveal tell-tale center-sole nail and tack holes in the sole, as left from the temporary
pinning of it to a last with nails10 If these are valid
lasts, then it's plausible that the lasting idea was developed in the east.

c.150-832

Akhmin (Panopolis) - Coptic

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"Straight" lasts. Most look 5-6th century10May be the same as mentioned above and below.

The Greenland Lasts can not be any more recent than this, and
based on their placement just under the top layer of debris and soil, they are not much
older. In any case, they are unlikely older than 1000 CE.4

"Modern"Welted shoes start to
appear10, and move quickly spread like a leather plague

????

Scotland

"Souter Last" at Northampton Central Museum. All it
has is "Souter Last" on a 19th century museum label stuck on it--no provenience10

So, what does this tell us? It clearly partially disproved my initial hypothesis.
At least by the 1300s, and likely earlier, lasts were being used with some aspects
of making turned shoes. It also suggests that lasts may have developed
with the turned shoe, in the late Roman era. However, even in the Roman world, the
turned shoe was not the dominant form (and in fact, it can be argued that these were not
true "turned shoes" (See Turned)). In those areas where
the turned shoe faded from use with the decline of Imperial culture, the last seems to
disappear as well. It may remain in use in Egypt. Did the use of the
last die out? The evidence is not conclusive. When the turned shoe returns to
northern Europe with the Norse, the last appears with it, but the Hedeby shoes do not
clearly seem to have been made on the lasts found with them. If not, then they were
introduced for some other purpose - such as forming a backing for decorating the leather,
for shaping the newly made shoes, or something else. As the turned shoe seems to
spread across Europe, the last appears to have followed. However, the use of tacks
and such is not really clear until later on, either from holes in the wood, or holes in
the soles.

One thing that is clear from experimentation is that shoes made on a last can better be
made with a narrow and fitted sole (one that more better fits the instep, like the later
medieval shoes) without the upper leather bunching, than shoes made without a last. Shoes
made without a last often have a wider, more generalized sole. This dichotomy in
sole shapes does appear in the shoes from the Middle Ages, with the earlier shoes having
wider soles, and thinner, more shaped soles, after the late 1200s or so.

On the other hand, a short study of archaelogical shoes at the Museum of London and
Northampton shoe collections showed none of the nail holes in the sole that would be
expected to be found with a lasted shoe, when looking at turned shoes from the late 15th
century, while there do appear to be nail holes in at least some of the shoes from Nordic
York. The lasts, which I have not examined personally, may or may not have any clear
lasting tack holes.

Finally there is a serious problem making a turned shoe with any significant welt on a
last, such as are found on "turned welt" shoes - in essence there is no room
between the upper and the last for the welt, and the disfiguration that doing so is fairly
obvious on any upper it was made on. This does not appear on any of the shoes I have
examined, nor has it been mentioned by any past shoe researcher. Logically then,
shoes may not have been made (i.e. assembled) on the last.

So, ultimately, we really don't know at this time how the last was used for making
turned shoes. I have to wonder though if the uppers weren't formed on the last after
closing, and, after they had been completely dried, perhaps assembled with the welt off
the last.

My current working hypothesis is that by about 1300 lasts were used by some people at
some times. Other people, and at earlier times, may or may not have been using them
to build shoes on. They may have been using them for other things, like shaping and
helping to form decoration.